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Also by Meghan Daum:

Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House, May 2010
Hardcover
The Quality of Life Report, June 2004
Paperback

LIFE WOULD BE PERFECT IF I LIVED IN THAT HOUSE
By: Meghan Daum

Knopf
May 2010
On Sale: May 4, 2010
256 pages
ISBN: 0307270661
EAN: 9780307270665
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

From the acclaimed author and columnist: a laugh-out-loud journey into the world of real estate—the true story of one woman’s “imperfect life lived among imperfect houses” and her quest for the four perfect walls to call home.

After an itinerant suburban childhood and countless moves as a grown-up—from New York City to Lincoln, Nebraska; from the Midwest to the West Coast and back—Meghan Daum was living in Los Angeles, single and in her mid-thirties, and devoting obscene amounts of time not to her writing career or her dating life but to the pursuit of property: scouring Craigslist, visiting open houses, fantasizing about finding the right place for the right price. Finally, near the height of the real estate bubble, she succumbed, depleting her life’s savings to buy a 900-square-foot bungalow, with a garage that “bore a close resemblance to the ruins of Pompeii” and plumbing that “dated back to the Coolidge administration.”

From her mother’s decorating manias to her own “hidden room” dreams, Daum explores the perils and pleasures of believing that only a house can make you whole. With delicious wit and a keen eye for the absurd, she has given us a pitch-perfect, irresistible tale of playing a lifelong game of house.

Media Buzz

Talk of the Nation - May 5, 2010